Texas Man Receives First American Full-Face Transplant

Dallas Wiens suffered horrific burns in a 2008 accident

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 03.21.2011 at 2:25 pm 8 Comments

Dallas Wiens Dallas Wiens, the first American full-face transplant recipient, in a photo taken before the surgery. He now has a new nose, lips, skin and muscles and nerves. DallasWiens.com

A 25-year-old father from Fort Worth, Texas, received a new face in a 15-hour procedure last week, Brigham and Women’s Hospital announced Monday. Dallas Wiens is the first American to receive a full facial transplant.

Wiens received a nose, lips, facial skin, muscles and nerves from a donor, who was not named. The procedure involved more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists, the hospital said. It was the country’s first complete facial transplant; two other procedures were considered “partial” transplants.

Wiens was using a cherry-picker lift in November 2008 to paint a church when he hit a power line. The live electrical wire essentially burned off his face, leaving him blind and without a nose or lips. He was in a coma for three months, and although doctors were able to graft skin from his back and thighs onto his head, they could not reconstruct his face.

In a YouTube video last year, he spoke about why he wanted to receive a face transplant, and how he wanted to smile again and feel kisses from his 3-year-old daughter, Scarlette.

Last week’s procedure was almost exactly a year to the date of the world’s first-ever full facial transplant, which restored facial features to a Spanish man who accidentally shot himself in the face. In 2009, Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeons performed a partial transplant on James Maki, who was disfigured in a subway accident. In 2008, the Cleveland Clinic transplanted 80 percent of the face of Connie Culp, who was shot in the face in 2004.

Wiens was working as an independent contractor at the time and didn’t have health insurance. Medicaid covered about two dozen surgeries before dropping him from their rolls. The Defense Department underwrote his surgery, hoping to advance face transplant techniques that could help injured warfighters.

[Reuters]

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8 Comments

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lcdrforan

03/21/11 at 5:26 pm

I say good for him.
Neat how we're getting advanced enough to transplant such things as faces. Does that mean in the future a face-lift will be just that? New identities every year?
I wonder who would donate their face for such science.

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wltstab1

03/21/11 at 5:34 pm

this is amazing. Im glad the procedure went well, and that is very interesting that the Department of Defense covered the surgery to help improve this field of surgery. Lucky that the operation was covered......

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03/22/11 at 12:19 pm

Wow, it is amazing that he survived such an accident. hopefully the surgery turns out well. It sounds that when the article states, "The procedure involved more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists", they are saying anesthesiologists are not doctors. Many misunderstand what anesthesiologists do, but they are physicians.

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B.V.

03/24/11 at 5:02 pm

"his 3-year-old daughter, Scarlette"

I'm sorry, but, really? That's what the guy without a face names his daughter?

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Dane619

03/26/11 at 10:01 pm

WTF!? ^ why is that the most "striking" thing about this article to you B.V.?

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loebane

03/27/11 at 9:04 am

The most striking thing about this article is that somebody decided that they no longer needed a face... unless the donor was a corpse.

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B.V.

03/28/11 at 4:15 pm

@Dane, cause face transplanting isn't new?

Just cause they did it in TX now too, isn't that much of a breakthrough to report on...

However, why on earth one would name their kid after "Scar" is a mystery...

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SIR

07/23/12 at 1:07 pm

B.V. are you a real idiot or are you just pretending to be one? I will go with "a real idiot"

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